Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History facts for kids

The Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History is a special non-profit group in Palm Beach County, Florida. It's like a traveling museum right now, looking for a permanent home.

Since 2004, the museum has offered fun bus tours of historic Delray Beach, Florida. These tours tell stories about the area. In 2011, they also started the first food tours in Palm Beach County, exploring local tastes.

Museum History and Mission

The Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History began in 1999. Its main goal is to show how people lived through different times. This includes looking at cultures, fashion, clothes, and even toys. They want to share how everyday items were used in the past.

Where the Museum Has Been

From 2003 to 2005, the museum had a home in Delray Beach. It was located in the Pineapple Grove Plaza. However, the plaza was sold and torn down in 2005, so the museum needed a new spot.

Later, from 2009 to 2012, the museum was at the Boynton Beach Mall in Boynton Beach, Florida. Here, they had two main exhibits. One was called "Fashion Treasures," showing clothes from the 1800s to today. The other was a special gallery about the famous Barbie doll.

The Popular Barbie Museum Exhibit

The Barbie Museum display was a big hit at the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History. It featured hundreds of Barbie dolls. You could see dolls from when Barbie first came out in 1959, along with her friends and family. There were also many clothes and accessories from different years.

The idea for a museum focused on Barbie doll history started in 1999. Lori J. Durante, who was 27 at the time, organized a special exhibit. It was called "40 Years of the Barbie Doll: In Celebration of Women's History Month."

Lori J. Durante had worked as a fashion writer and stylist. Her research for a news story about Barbie's 39th birthday inspired her. She decided to create an exhibit for Barbie's 40th anniversary in Delray Beach.

For this amazing exhibit, Mattel, the company that makes Barbie, loaned many dolls. These included dolls from different cultures and special collector editions. The exhibit also showed dolls from private collectors. It was a huge success, with over 20,000 visitors from all over Florida and beyond. It became the most popular local exhibit in Palm Beach County.

Special Collections and Items

The Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History has a large collection of items. It includes more than 300 fashion pieces, clothes, and accessories. They also have household items, decorative arts, and many toys and dolls.

A special part of their collection includes ninety fancy dresses. These were designed by the famous designer Arnold Scaasi. Other well-known designers in their fashion collection include Chester Weinberg, Bill Blass, Hattie Carnegie, Stetson, Lilly Pulitzer, and Iris Apfel.